Skepticism

EVENTS

You found the capslock key once, can you find it again?

This rant pushes a lot of my buttons: ALL CAPS, the pre-declaration that some might find it offensive, the dishonesty, the pseudo-piety that makes forcing your beliefs on others a requirement, and that the idea of leaving people alone is an intrusion on your rights. And of course, it’s the War On Christmas.

Look, raving nutter, I don’t believe in Jesus. You can’t demand that I accept your wacky myth in order to enjoy a day off in December. You believe in Jesus. I don’t have the power to rummage around in your head and change that — you can believe the 25th of December is your special day to love Jesus even more, and I’m just going to shrug and say, “OK. Knock yourself out, guy.”

If you want to believe that Armistice Day celebrates the time Jesus put flowers in soldiers’ rifles, go right ahead; you want to celebrate Arbor Day by praising Jesus’ wood, fine; if you think the 4th of July honors the day Jesus visited Philadelphia, you get to. You can tell people “Merry Christmas” on Halloween if you want, there’s no law against it. That I choose not to believe your bullshit is not an infringement of your rights.

Besides, you’re probably doing Christmas wrong. There’s supposed to be lutefisk and lefse, and krumkake for dessert, and if you don’t recite the Lord’s Prayer in Norwegian, you’re going to Hell. If you don’t agree, then apparently you are waging war on my Christmas.

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Funny thing is, no its not Christian. Celebrations of the winter solstice are pretty much universal in European cultures and the idea of celebrating the birth of a God by exchanging gifts on the 25th December famously originated in the cult of Mithras. Early Christians didn’t celebrate birthdays, the whole concept was a pagan idea. That’s why Cromwell banned Christmas, he realized it was unchristian.

The first (internet) death threat I got was from a rabbi (so he said) who kept insisting that the fact that I took Christmas day off work (work was closed anyway, of course) meant that I secretly believed in Baby Jesus. Why my denial of that should cause a rabbi to impotently threaten to kill me is unknown.

It was the same sort of logic with a similar number of capital letters. He insisted that I turn up at work (despite the fact that it was closed) or admit I believe in Jesus. It was when I said I wouldn’t that he threatened murder.

I to wonder at the outrage against “Happy Holidays”. Thinking, silently, “isn’t Christmas a holiday, (you know) holy day?”
I keep silent, cause I think I know the answer. Christmas is specific, AND holidays is to/2/too generic. ~~Thus it dilutes the true meaning of the day into washwater.
So I’ll jut shrug and breathe, ‘merry krissmus 2 U’, while turning and leaving.
I like to think, that Christmas is about gift-giving to reaffirm one’s love for the receiver, that J dude is just an excuse to go sing with lots of people. To me, Xmas [sic] is about celebrating people who are actually alive and friends, not some mythical dead person from ~2kyrs ago.

So, which is it? If Christmas is only for Christians and I therefore celebrate Festivus instead, why would I still go around wishing people a Merry Christmas? Are you going to wish me a happy Festivus?

This is the problem with this attitude. They can’t decide if they want Christmas to be a private Christian celebration or if they want it to be a public, universal holiday. Really, they want it both ways; only for Christians, but everyone has to participate, i.e. Christianity should be mandatory. People like this probably wouldn’t agree that that’s what they’re saying, but I think the conclusion is hard to escape.

For that matter, the ‘Christmas break’ often encompasses New Year’s Eve and Day. So if I wanted to wish someone to have both a nice Christmas and a nice New Year’s, I could say ‘Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’… or I could use the shorter ‘Happy Holidays’.

That makes me wonder if the shortest way to discourage the War on Christmas types is to burst into “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in public any time they object. Given how most adults find public singing mildly embarrassing, it might serve to discourage the behavior.

(Also, as academics, let’s be honest: the real break is any period between turning in grades and classes starting. So I have several weeks of holiday in December.)

And what about that fir tree in the living room? It’s so clearly biblical. It symbolizes the ‘tree’ on which Jesus was crucified. In my youth my slightly unhinged grandma would adorn it with dozens of tiny crucifixes. Ah, the warm memories. As a five year old I would sit there and stare at all those tiny men dying in exquisite agony. That’s what Christmas means to me. Now, pass the eggnog (the stuff with a good dollop of rum in it).

I think we should just start wishing them a salubrious solstice. I have a few reasons for this:
1) They’re obviously offended by the recognition of more than one celebration in December, so we should keep it to one.
2) It’s just a nice thing to say! “Be healthy around the shortest day.” What could possibly be offensive about that?
3) It’s a damn, dirty pagan holiday! Also, salubrious is a big and funny-sounding word – probably has something to do with sex and devil worship! WICKED!
4) It makes more sense to celebrate the solstice – that way, Santa has more time to get the presents delivered!

Use a script to automatically change all-caps posts to all lower-case. Turn OLD SHOUTY into john q. sensitive. When you emphasize everything, you’ve emphasized nothing, except your nuisance value.

On the other hand, it’s useful to know which posts to skip, like if you were hitching a ride and somebody with three ‘confederate’ flags slows, you can say you were just drying your thumb. (I don’t know about you, but I probably don’t want to listen to the music on that stereo.)

Jennifer: Please point out the passage in your Bible that commands Christians to observe an annual holiday in celebration of Jesus’ birthday. It isn’t in there. You people just make things up, & then act like you received them direct from God on stone tablets or something.

LykeX at #7 pointed out the major contradiction in this fevered rant: if your argument is that too many people celebrate Christmas without its religious meaning, then the last thing you’re going to want is “Merry Christmas ” on everyone’s lips. That’s only going to secularize the holiday even more. How bizarre that the proponent of say-merry-Xmas don’t see how that totally undercuts the stay-out-of-our-sacred-holyday position.

Last year American Atheist pushed a big “Christmas is for everyone” campaign by both saying Merry Christmas and emphasizing that no, it sure doesn’t need Christ. Well played.

There is no christ in christmas. Not in my language, Dutch. Kerstmis. No christ there.
Not in the french language either (Noël) or German (Weinachten, they do have wein it seems! haha ) Not in spanish either (Feliz Navidad).
There is no christ in the tree.. in santa.. or in the custom of giving gifts around that time.
This is one thing i find christians to be completely delusional and narrow minded about.

I dunno, PZ. Just because that screed is typed in all caps doesn’t mean the author found the capslock key. It’s almost entertaining when you envision the author typing it, hitting the shift key for each letter as they go.

Why do people keep confusing belief states with acts of volition? I can no more choose to believe in an invisible sky fairy than I can choose to like broccoli. I just don’t. Beliefs are not chosen, they just are. I think it’s possible that thinking beliefs are chosen is harmful to society because it adds a responsibility in the belief. And that means we might treat people worse than they deserve for holding a belief.

If you believe that you are able to choose what you believe than I propose the following:

Choose to believe that belief is non-volitional. If you are unable to just choose to do so, well, then I think you’ll probably come around. :)

I’ve seen a more posts than usually on my Facebook feed railing against “Happy Holidays” and how they’re going to say “Merry Christmas” no matter how offended people get. I don’t have the closest relationships with family members so I don’t want to threaten what relationships I do have by stating that the only being getting loud and offended are them.

There is no christ in christmas. Not in my language, Dutch. Kerstmis. No christ there.
Not in the french language either (Noël) or German (Weinachten, they do have wein it seems! haha ) Not in spanish either (Feliz Navidad).

“Kerstmis” is from the late medieval (Middel Dutch) ihesus kerst = Jezus Christus.
“Noël” is from an old French word meaning birth (it is related to the word naissance). Of course it means the birth of Christ.
“Weihnachten” (with an h) means holy nights (vgl. NL “gewijde nachten”). Again, the holiness is a reference to the Christ figure.
“Navidad” is from natividad, again meaning birth of you-know-who.

Christians have claimed and put their stamp on the winter soltice feast for at least 1700 years. I don’t think there are many languages where the name of the festival is something other than a reference to Jesus.

Ummmm…. shouldn’t that tree have gone up on Good Friday, according to that logic?

And speaking of Friday, re: the O/P, I hope that Jennifer never says “Thank God it’s Friday!” to anyone at the end of a hard week; HOW DARE YOU APPROPRIATE OUR HEATHEN HERITAGE! FRIGG IS THE REASON FOR THE WEEKEND!”

Lutefisk is a guarantee that Christians will suffer. Therefore, they should love it. They should seek it out.

I top my winter solstice tree with an empty, upside-down whiskey bottle. It looks festive. If you want to get even more festive, use streamers of golden ribbon to make it look like whiskey is flowing over the tree.

Strangely, mormons in my neighbor have a sort of “Smithmas” thing going on.

First Presidency Message: “A Season for Gratitude,” by President Gordon B. Hinckley […]
This is a season for giving and a time for gratitude. We remember with appreciation the birth of the Prophet Joseph Smith, which is celebrated this same month of December, two days before Christmas.

Good old Ben Stein (*.mmmm..Bueller!…!!*) has shared a ‘glorious’ op-ed where he opines how Jewish he is (as well as his entire ancestry *smirk*), and how he is not, no way, at all offended when hearing “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”. Also that he thinks (implying as every right thinking person should) that Merry Christmas is all inclusive, regardless of religion.
pffft
me thinks ole Steiny has gots that backward. M.C. is exclusive, while H.H. is the all inclusive phrase.

Newenlightenment has a good point @ 1 – Christmas was superimposed upon earlier winter fertility celebrations from several pre-Christian religions. Ranting ALL CAPS here talks about ‘my holiday’, but the real issue goes unaddressed – when are we going to restore Saturnalia to its rightful owners, the Pagans?

Of course what internal textual evidence there is from the bible suggests J’s birthday was nowhere near December. In Palestine in those days no one tended their flocks of sheep in December, for instance. So if you really do believe the bible is true you should not celebrate your baby God’s birthday when you do anyway.

But it’s totally unfair to expect members of any religion to be worried by evidence, of course.

By their logic, nobody should ever collectively use the term “Presidents of the United States of America” ever again, because that would dilute the meaning of George Washington into washwater, and nobody should ever refer to anything collectively ever again because it’s somehow harmful to one particular thing in that group.n Or it’s just an excuse you’re using to be a Dominionist and use Christmas as a cudgel for smacking those heathens until they agree to let Christians take the spotlight.

But PZ, HOW DO YOU EAT YOUR LEFSE? This is a question of vital importance. With butter and sugar is of course the correct answer, but there are some people – they shall go unnamed – who eat their lefse with cranberry sauce. This is anathema.

Also, lutefisk is gross, but my grandpa really liked it for some reason.

Also too, why is this person ranting about Christmas already when it’s the beginning of November? Time goes by quickly enough on its own.

So, which is it? If Christmas is only for Christians and I therefore celebrate Festivus instead, why would I still go around wishing people a Merry Christmas? Are you going to wish me a happy Festivus?

This is the problem with this attitude. They can’t decide if they want Christmas to be a private Christian celebration or if they want it to be a public, universal holiday. Really, they want it both ways; only for Christians, but everyone has to participate, i.e. Christianity should be mandatory. People like this probably wouldn’t agree that that’s what they’re saying, but I think the conclusion is hard to escape.

The moment US christian pushed to have their so-called sacred holy day recognized as a national holiday of a secular nation, it became an open invitation for any citizen to celebrate it as they see fit. If they wanted to keep it so sacred, they should have kept it in the churches.

And yep, they want it all to themselves and yet simultaneously observed and respected by all non-christians. I suppose the idea is that we’re to sit on the sidelines in our dreary, holiday-free lives, look on with hunger and envy, and give in and convert so we can have fun, too. That we go off and have fun our own ways, whatever ways those are, is just one more way uppity non-christians just piss them off. Perhaps this magical ability to have their CHRISTmas cake and eat it, too to has to do with that trinity nonsense of father, son, and holy ghost being the one and separate at the same time. The physics of religion :o)

I usually say that since christians stole christmas anyway, they don’t get to keep it. I will take it and celebrate the hell out of it.
My oldest daughter is becoming increasingly aware that we are “different”. There are the christian kids, there are the muslim kids and there’s her. So last year she asked: “But mum, since we don’t believe in gods and Jesus, why do we celebrate christmas?” I told her because we like to and she was perfectly happy with that answer.

My usual response to people like that is to say they should keep the Sol in Solstice. It is amazing to watch heads pop at the very idea that maybe other cultures and belief systems have mid-winter holidays, too.

Why do people keep confusing belief states with acts of volition? I can no more choose to believe in an invisible sky fairy than I can choose to like broccoli. I just don’t. Beliefs are not chosen, they just are. I think it’s possible that thinking beliefs are chosen is harmful to society because it adds a responsibility in the belief. And that means we might treat people worse than they deserve for holding a belief.

I don’t know about all that.
I think when you expand belief outside the religious realm to other forms of pseudoscience or woo, people do choose to believe. Look at the people who believe in Nessie, Ancient Aliens, or Sasquatch. I’d argue they choose to believe. And the people that believe in Nessie hold a belief in something with no more evidence than any deity.
And also, people can choose not to believe in something.

December 24 is the birthday of Swedish comedian/author and comics writer Martin Kellerman.
His comic strip “Rocky” featuring his alter ego dals with just about everything in life (with a coarse/sophisticated humor that rivals Family Guy), and I find it perfectly appropriate that so many people around the world celebrate his birth.

(Then again Rocky is not very religious, When asked about what he thibks will happen after death he answers “my relatives will go through my belongings , and my grandma might find my porn stash. Very embarassing!”)

@62 Tony!
I think the illusory impression that these people “choose to believe” is a consequence of people like you and me not understanding their reasons for belief because they would never lead us to the same conclussion. Basically, not seeing their reasons as reasons at all. However, i don’t think it’s real, i don’t think people choose to believe. At best, people choose to profess believe, that i agree with, but actual believe, acceptance of any claim, must be the result of being convinced that the claim is true or likely true. The problem is, of course, that you can be convinced for really terrible reasons, but nevertheless there is a state of being convinced.

I can’t believe that you actually put lutefisk in your mouth PZ, and this comes from someone born in the country that invented Marmite!
Please don’t let the fundies know what you do. The ritual swallowing of the very smegma of Satan would convince them that atheists are devil worshipers of the vilest sort.

To Olav at #31: I’m happy to say that in your own language, and the Nordic ones in general (including my own, Finnish), the name of the holiday has nothing to do with Christianity.
The following is from Wikipedia. I don’t usually refer to Wikipedia sources, and discourage my students from doing so, but this is accurate and was easy to copy-paste:

Yule is the modern English representation of the Old English words ġéol or ġéohol and ġéola or ġéoli, with the former indicating the 12-day festival of “Yule” (later: “Christmastide”) and the latter indicating the month of “Yule”, whereby ǽrra ġéola referred to the period before the Yule festival (December) and æftera ġéola referred to the period after Yule (January). Both words are thought to be derived from Common Germanic *jeχʷla-, and are cognate with Gothic (fruma) jiuleis and Old Norse (Icelandic and Faroese) jól (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian jul) as well as ýlir,[1] Estonian jõul(ud) and Finnish joulu. The etymological pedigree of the word, however, remains uncertain, though numerous speculative attempts have been made to find Indo-European cognates outside the Germanic group, too.
The word is attested in an explicitly pre-Christian context primarily in Old Norse. Among many others (see List of names of Odin), the long-bearded god Odin bears the names jólfaðr (Old Norse ‘Yule father’) and jólnir (Old Norse ‘the Yule one’). In plural (Old Norse jólnar; ‘the Yule ones’) may refer to the Norse gods in general. In Old Norse poetry, the word is often employed as a synonym for ‘feast’, such as in the kenning hugins jól (Old Norse ‘Huginn’s Yule’ > ‘a raven’s feast’).

What these people are really upset about is when private businesses require their employees to say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas” for the simple reason that the employee has no idea whether or not the customer (he or she who is always right as long as they have green) is Christian. That just reminds them that they do not live in a Christian theocracy but in a secular nation with no national religion. Drives them crazy. So I always reply to “Merry Christmas” with “Happy Holidays to you.”